


I've spent my whole life trying to put it into words

by serenadreams



Series: You R in Love [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluuuuffff, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 10:38:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3847768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenadreams/pseuds/serenadreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity says I love you in a million different ways. </p><p>Companion piece to 'dancing in a snow globe round and round'</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've spent my whole life trying to put it into words

**Author's Note:**

> Did you really think I wouldn't do a Felicity one too? Actually I honestly didn't think I would. I tend to find Oliver easier to write for some reason. But hey this happened so yeah. Enjoy! Posting now because it seems like the fandom could use some happiness :\
> 
> Song - You R in Love by TS.

_Morning, his place_

_Burnt toast, Sunday_

_You keep his shirt_

_And he keeps his word_

_And for once you let go_

_Of your fears and your ghosts_

 

Felicity says _I love you_ in a million different ways. She says it with her touch and her warmth, and the fact that she'll follow Oliver to the ends of the earth and back. She says _I love you_ with every breath she takes and every beat of her heart.

 

 

She says _I love you_ with small fingertips and brightly colored nails running absently down his back as they pass in a hallway. Without time to stop and exchange kisses and words, because they’re at work and they’re _professional._ Instead, settling on a quick upturn of lips and a brush of her delicate hands over his suit jacket. The smile always stays on his face until she’s out of sight, when it gradually fades away along with her presence.

 

 

She says _I love you_ with the press of each bandage to his damaged skin. By some unspoken shift, she’d become the one to hover over him with medical supplies and steady hands in place of Digg. She tells him years later, that she likes to be the one to treat him because it makes her feel a little more in control. In control of fate, of his mortality, of the fact that he _will_ get to see another day. So she dabs at his wounds with antiseptic, and carefully cleans blood away without flinching. And closes his eyes and lets her, because he’d be lying if he said it’s not a nice thing to come back to. Injured and in pain, her presence heals more than any medicine ever could.

 

 

She says _I love you_ with a shared gaze across a crowded room. Eyes warm and full of promises of _later_. The affection on her face making his chest tighten because she’s the best thing to ever happen to him and he’ll never deserve her, and yet she continues to look at him like _that_.

 

 

She says _I love you_ with his name listed as her emergency contact and his number as speed dial one in her phone, and with the fact that he has power of attorney in the event of something happening to her. (She did that without telling him and when he found out they had one of the biggest fights of their lives, because _nothing is going to happen to you Felicity! Damn it, don’t even go there!_ She replied that he’s the only one she’ll ever trust completely with her life, and she just needed to make sure that any decisions would be in his hands alone.)

 

 

She says _I love you_ with his head in her lap as blood stains her pretty dress. Fingers running over his forehead and down his cheeks, caressing his face as whispered words of comfort soothe his soul. He can survive a lot, but a head injury is bad and they both know it. But she doesn’t panic or run or scream, she stays with him, protecting him with her small frame as he lies incapable in her arms. Her tears are silent, and he knows she’s trying to stay strong for him. To keep him calm, to keep him going. She presses her lips to his face and tells him everything will be alright, and when it’s her saying it, he thinks he just might believe it.

 

 

She says _I love you_ by insisting they celebrate his birthday, even though it’s something he’s barely acknowledged in years. It’s a rough time of year for him, with memories of Tommy and loss and _failure_ heavy in his mind. But she doesn’t let him brush it under the carpet and ignore the milestone. Nor does she throw a huge party or force him into a situation he feels uncomfortable with. She’d never do that. Because she gets him, she knows him. More than anyone else ever has. More than his mother who loved him unconditionally but always wanted him to a be something he wasn’t. Or his sister who had spent her whole life disagreeing with him just for the sake of it. No one’s ever known him like she does. The good and the bad, the dark and the light. The parts he’d rather keep hidden and the parts he likes to pretend don’t exist. She knows all of it, and it doesn’t scare her.

She takes him to a hotel a couple of hours out of town for the weekend. Close enough that they can get home quickly in an emergency, but far enough away that they won’t go back for anything less. They spend the weekend in peace, surrounded by warmth and laughter. And he eats his birthday cake off her skin and thinks that these will be the first good memories he’ll have of this particular day in a very long time.

 

 

She says _I love you_ with the soft press of her lips to the center of his back. She slips into bed beside him, and he feels, in his half awake state, the fan of her breath against his skin and the quiet hum of contentment that escapes her as she burrows into his warmth. Usually he would turn and wrap himself around her, but he’s barely awake and his leg is hurting. So when she drapes an arm over his body, bringing her hand to rest against his heart, he matches her murmur of content and lets any residual tension seep out of him. She presses her cheek into his shoulder blade and another whisper of her lips against his skin has a rush of emotion lodging in his throat. He can hear her breathing evening out, automatically syncing to his, and he brings a hand up to hold hers where it rests against his skin. Their fingers link together naturally and her hair tickles his back as she shifts a little, before sighing softly and relaxing against him. Together they drift to sleep and he thinks that the whole world would be healed, if everyone got to end their days like this.

 

 

She says _I love you_ with the bracelet on her wrist that she never takes off. It’s a simple gold chain, with an infinity sign between two of the links. He’d seen it in a store window as he’d passed, and bought it for her without pause. It’s the first promise of forever that he gives her. Long before a diamond ring and then the gold band that follows. Long before vows in front of friends and tattoos etched into his skin. It’s the first. And she doesn’t panic, or refuse the gift, because it’s probably too soon to know whether or not this is forever, by conventional standards. She lets him clasp it around her slender wrist, lets him make the wordless promise, and returns it with one of her own. Never undoing that clasp again.

 

 

She says _I love you_ with the fact that it takes her all of two seconds to jump to his defense when she hears the idle rich tear apart his character, dressed in formal wear, within the walls of his own company. He feels a pang of guilt, watching her defend his honor, her loud voice making an appearance as she puts three powerful people in their place with only a few words. He feels guilty, because he never did that for her. When she was the victim of nasty rumors and the punch line of every office joke, he never shot them down, he never did _anything_. Sure, it was long before they were together, and if he heard so much as one bad word about her now he’d have a very different reaction. But as he watches her position herself between him and the verbal attack, much as he does between her and a physical threat, he wishes he could go back and do for her what she so naturally does for him.

 

 

She says _I love you_ with her unshakeable faith in him. Whatever he does, however much he fucks up, she’s always there with a belief in his character, in his strength, in his heart, in his mind, in his mission. In him. She’s always there, telling him he’s got this. He can do it. She trusts him. He’ll do the right thing. And when he doesn’t, when he makes mistakes and disappoints her, somehow that faith doesn’t fade. It’s still there, full force. Unstoppable. Unending.

And clinging to the side of a building, hand reaching for hers, unable to reach her however far he stretches his arm, fingertips just barely brushing hers, she puts such blind faith in him that his heart stops.

He tells her to _"Jump Felicity. I’ll catch you."_ And she leaps without hesitation.

He does catch her, of course. Because he always will. But it kills him a little bit, how much she trusts him. He’ll never be worthy of that trust. Never be worthy of her jumping across a hundred foot drop and into his arms just because he tells her to. He crushes her against his chest and tries to steady his heart because he’s almost angry at her for doing exactly as he asked, even as he’s buzzing with emotion for the same reason. It’s a confusing jumble of feelings that he doesn’t know quite what to do with. So he just presses a kiss into her hair and leads her as far away from the danger as he can.

 

 

She says _I love you_ with every lipstick stain she leaves on his skin. There’s a possessive side to her that he never expected, but can’t deny has a very pleasant effect on him. He has to wipe the ones on his face away when he heads out into the world, but he often leaves those hidden by his clothes. A smudge of bright pink on his chest, like a little piece of her he gets to keep with him all day. And when he takes his shirt off to workout and sees where it’s rubbed off on the material, he feels a rush of affection and want for her that makes him almost dizzy.

 

 

She says _I love you_ when she wakes him from his nightmares and soothes him with her touch and her voice. Not caring that he’s sweaty and wrecked. Not caring that his dreams are bloody and angry and she’s beautiful and _good_ and shouldn’t be sullied by his darkness. She pulls him into her, gives herself over to him until all he knows is _Felicity, Felicity, Felicity._ And whatever dreams he had, drift away because _Felicity, Felicity, Felicity._

 

 

She says _I love you_ with their little tradition as he suits up every night. She’ll fit his mask over his eyes, and pull his hood up over his head, letting her fingers brush gently down his cheek and across his jaw. Then she’ll stand up on her tiptoes and brush her lips softly against his and whisper _come back_ , before stepping away and letting him walk out the door. And when he does come back to her, because he always will, she meets him with a smile and a much longer kiss, a _thank you_ falling from her lips every time.

 

 

She says _I love you_ with the way their lives gradually become one. A shared closet where her dresses hang beside his suits, and their shoes line up in uneven rows. His aftershave on the edge of the sink alongside whichever lipstick she used that morning. Sandalwood soap and vanilla body wash in the shower. Protein powder in the kitchen cupboards even though _God that stuff is gross._ A pink fluffy dressing gown hanging beside a much larger, navy blue one on the back of their bedroom door. His bedside table neat and tidy with only a lamp and his phone, and maybe a weapon hidden in one of the drawers. Hers a mess of hair ties and books and coffee mugs. A DVR filled with _Ellen_ episodes and baseball games. Their keys sharing a bowl by the door, hers on a pretty beaded key-ring, and his on a beautiful little oak plaque with his initials carved into it, that she gave him as a random gift nowhere near any holidays.Their lives fit together with as much ease as as their bodies and hearts.

 

 

She says _I love you_ when she whispers _yes_ against his lips. A ring, _his_ ring, slipping onto her finger, making her his forever and giving him a future he never thought he’d get.

 

 

She says _I love you_ on their wedding day when she has to choke back tears as she says her vows. "You’re my best friend. The best friend I’ve ever had. You’re the person I want to see when I’m sad, you’re the person I call when I’m scared. You’re the person I think about when I’m alone, and the person I dream about when I’m asleep. You’re my first thought in the morning and my last at night. You’re the only one I’ve ever been able to see a future with. And with you, it’s so much more than a future. It’s everything. And I want to share every second of it with you."  There isn't a dry eye in the house after that, including his.

 

 

She says _I love you_ when she doesn’t let him give up. On the world, on their mission, on life, on them. She never lets him give up. She always gives him something to fight for.

 

 

She says _I love you_ when Thea is in trouble and he’s busy on a mission so she mutes the comms and goes herself. And when he berates her for being reckless, she says _I love you_ with her heated reply of "Thea’s family Oliver. I’d do anything for her."

 

She says _I love you_ with a quiet _it was worth it_ after thirteen hours of labor, as she watches from her hospital bed as he gazes at the tiny little human in his arms.

 

She says _I love you_ every time her head falls to rest against his shoulder.

 

She says _I love you_ when she opens the door to her house and heart, and welcomes his invasion into every inch of her life.

She says _I love you_ with mornings in their bed wearing nothing but his shirt and a smile.

 

She says _I love you_ with her steady voice on the comms guiding him in and out of battle and never once faltering.

 

She says _I love you_ with a post it note on the fridge telling him to take an umbrella to work because it’s going to rain.

 

She says _I love you_ with a note written on the bathroom mirror in eyeliner.

 

Felicity says _I love you_ in a million different ways. And Oliver spends every day of the rest of his life knowing without a doubt, that whether or not he deserves it, Felicity Smoak loves him with everything she has.

 

_You can hear it in the silence_

_You can feel it on the way home_

_You can see it with the lights out_

_You are in love_

_True love_


End file.
